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Your cheap hammer probably has low grade steel on the tip and it is deforming as you try and tune with it. Eventually it will be completely useless for tuning; it will still work well for hitting yourself in the head for buying it in the first place.

Pay attention to the tip, it should have threads attaching it to the head. This will allow you to change it out if it wears. A good tip like a Watanabe for example will cost you as much as the $20 you paid for the whole thing. I think you need to spend at least $80-100 for even an entry level hammer that will last you a long time. Someone doing this for a living would want to get one that is at least in the $120-150 range. The uber hammers can cost 3 times this much.

I have 2 tuning hammers, one was my grandfathers from the 1930's which still works fine, sometimes on older pianos, it doesnt grip as well, and the other is the same hammer I got when I took the courses from The American Piano Tuning School at home. It might be cheap? But it still works for me. Perhaps I should look into a better quality of hammers. Still new to all this so....learning.

I buyed a 20$ tuning hammers. And I cant tune my piano with it. I dont know if that is becuse I am a bad tuner or becuse the hammer is bad...

I just bought a $130 tuning tip plus a $35 adapter to fit onto my $300 + tuning lever. I am very happy with it - it works quite well. This is probably because I have learned to tune pianos efffectively and I invest in good quality tools.

For someone who wants to tune their own piano such as yourself, you may help among your peers at this Yahoo group: DIY pianotunings

Beethoven - I brought one in from Europe to try it out. If I like it I will carry it and offer it to technicians. I have just tuned a few pianos with it. I will hopefully know more after further testing, so stay tuned... arf arf

Beethoven - I brought one in from Europe to try it out. If I like it I will carry it and offer it to technicians. I have just tuned a few pianos with it. I will hopefully know more after further testing, so stay tuned... arf arf

I would like to add my perspective, having started to tune about 3 years ago, and having done only tens (not hundreds or thousands) of tunings. As others have written, a cheap lever, and especially a cheap, poorly-made tip will be counterproductive to your learning - and they may well damage your piano's tuning pins. OK, that's the one extreme.

The other extreme is spending many hundreds of dollars. While professionals such as Jurgen may be happy to do this, I don't regard those amounts as even remotely necessary for a beginner. Especially a tip for $130!

Emmery has already indicated that there is a suitable middle ground between these extremes. Quite a decent lever can be bought for $100 ($150 at most), and good tips, e.g. Watanabe, for about $20. In my case, I don't think that my Schaff extension lever and Watanabe tip are limiting me (yet). To the contrary, they inspire me to make more of each tuning I do.

Beethoven - I brought one in from Europe to try it out. If I like it I will carry it and offer it to technicians. I have just tuned a few pianos with it. I will hopefully know more after further testing, so stay tuned... arf arf

A 'ball peen' hammer with a socket tip on the other end was used back in the day. Turn the pin and tap it down with the peen hammer side. Here in modern times, most suppliers list them as 'Tuning Levers'.

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"Imagine it in all its primatic colorings, its counterpart in our souls - our souls that are great pianos whose strings, of honey and of steel, the divisions of the rainbow set twanging, loosing on the air great novels of adventure!" - William Carlos Williams

A 'ball peen' hammer with a socket tip on the other end was used back in the day. Turn the pin and tap it down with the peen hammer side. Here in modern times, most suppliers list them as 'Tuning Levers'.

But why did they turn the the hammer around and "tap it down?"

Early tuning pins were tapered and tapping them down was a way to seat the pin firmly in the hole and get it to stay where it was put.

Hence the tool was both a tuning lever and a hammer. Modern tuners refer to them by both names.

never seen a tapered early tuning pin, not on European pianos, in my limited experience.

but tapping a few mm allow to gain a little grip in new wood, while providing a few years of tuning, it also may lower the quality of the pin setting because the angle of the wire with the coil may be compromized (or the coils may finish touching the pinblock)

so this is a so so solution, while convenient, may be used with finesse and sometime the gain is minimal.

called "tamponnage des chevilles", or "tubage" in French

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Professional of the profession. Foo Foo specialistI wish to add some kind and sensitive phrase but nothing comes to mind.!

I buyed a 20$ tuning hammers. And I cant tune my piano with it. I dont know if that is becuse I am a bad tuner or becuse the hammer is bad

While this statement is somewhat laughable to professionals (someone called it a bluff), perhaps laypeople cannot entirely comprehend why. I submit this comparison:"I bought a set of golf clubs online for $49.-. But I still can't shoot a hole in one. Is it me or the clubs?"

Further comments of mine would be: Congratulations on hearing that your tuning is not good (I am serious). This means your hearing ability is better than your tuning ability. This is the way it should be. Even good tuners walk away from their tunings with a sense that they have not quite achieved perfection. That is what allows us to incrementally improve our skills and abilities and our work in pursuit of excellence over a number of years, if not decades.

Most DIYers actually think their tunings are good because their hearing discernability is so limited that they simply cannot hear the out-of-tuneness. We have seen numerous video postings of such "tunings". For the most part, these pianos are about as out of tune (after "tuning") as the ones professional tuners sit down to tune.

One more thing: You ask if you are a bad tuner. No. You are not a tuner. Just as buying a stethoscope would not make you a health practitioner.

Even good tuners walk away from their tunings with a sense that they have not quite achieved perfection. That is what allows us to incrementally improve our skills and abilities and our work in pursuit of excellence over a number of years, if not decades.

This is the single thing that I love the most about this job. The sense that, even after a succesful tuning, I know I could have done better. A wonderful insentive to continually improve!

Generally speaking one can know he have done the best he can under particular circumstances, but indeed no real standard exists in regard of tuning result.

because of ear fatigue it is difficult to correct a tuning while doing it, so often you hear in the end of the job that you could have do a part differently, sometime it is only the piano which settle in the new tuning.

taking a rest during tuning is the most useful thing. Concert tuning should be done in 2 parts the last (before concert) being better than the first. but this is highly theoretical..

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Professional of the profession. Foo Foo specialistI wish to add some kind and sensitive phrase but nothing comes to mind.!